Ex-Gossipers Provide Gossip Column Fodder

(Note to Gawker readers: I was all set to tear into our favorite celebrity gossip site for their blurry-eyed misreading of this item, where they suggest we reported that Deb Schoeneman had bailed on her own event, but then I spotted the ambiguous clause that might have confused them. If you’ve had your morning coffee, see if you can spot it!)

I was getting all set to write some snappy patter about the reading event at the Bubble Lounge tonight, where Deborah Schoeneman was supposed to host a “Gossip Lit” lineup of fellow ex-Post reporters Bridget Harrison and Ian Spiegelman, as well as Dana Vachon and (our ex-boss) Elizabeth Spiers. But when I went to confirm the lineup on Schoeneman’s website, I found that everyone but Spiegelman had bailed, and that the event now featured race car driver Alex Roy, who also chairs The Moth, a literary spoken word series, and Pamela Wasserstein, heretofore best known as the subject of her aunt Wendy’s children’s book Pamela’s First Musical, who will be reading from Elements of Style, the late playwright’s recently published novel. This doesn’t even sound like a “Gossip Lit” night anymore, even if PW did call Elements “dishy.” So what happened? Schoeneman explained when I reached her this morning that she was forced to revise the original lineup, which had been assembled months ago, in part because Vachon and Spiers felt it was too early for them to be out promoting their as-yet-unpublished works.

And Harrison? Spiegelman suggests her departure probably has something to do with the battle lines drawn by their former colleagues at the NY Post. “If Bridget was still working for the Post, then I’d say it was obvious that she’s yet another Postie who’s been given orders not to have any public contact with me after I’d spoken my mind about the Post’s management, the Murdochs, and Howard Rubenstein—namely that they are nasty, wrong-headed, and frankly stupid,” he emailed. “But I think it’s more likely that she pulled out due to her friendship with some of my former colleagues who aren’t too pleased with some of the statements Deb made in the wake of the Jared Paul Stern scandal.” For her part, Schoeneman allows that the fact that Paula Froelich hosted Harrison’s book party probably put Harrison in an awkward situation with regard to tonight’s event, as Froelich’s anti-Schoenemania is perhaps the worst kept secret in New York.

So, Schoeneman told me, she called upon her friend Roy (who has a memoir coming out next year) to fill in, and New York colleague Ben Wasserstein recommended his sister, and now the event is moving forward under a new “Summer Reading” banner. And even though Spiers won’t be reading tonight, she emailed that she still plans on showing up to cheer on her friends. (On a lighter note, Spiegelman reflects that kerfuffles like this are why he enjoys being out of the tabloid racket. “I can be honest, I can associate with whom I want, when I want, and I don’t owe an explanation to a single person aside from myself,” he says. “I don’t ever have to ask anyone why they are, or are not, doing what they’re doing. I can just sit back and watch. Light as a fucking feather. I owe no one, and no one owes me. I’m just a curious spectator now.”)

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